Uncomfortable Insight
by ThinkingSpeck
Summary: Sequel to "A Different Journey", though the Sorting falls in between. In Luna's first Charms class, Flitwick encounters her gift for insight.


**A/N:** This is a sequel to my earlier one-shot "A Different Journey", though I did skip the Sorting.

**A/N 2:** This was written for season 2, round 9 of firethecanon's Quidditch competition, as Seeker for the Caerphilly Catapults. The prompt is Filius Flitwick in an awkward/uncomfortable situation, and Luna Lovegood seemed like the ideal cause of that.

* * *

**Uncomfortable Insight**

Luna Lovegood was very early to her first-ever class at Hogwarts, Charms with Professor Flitwick. She rather had to be, really - Neville had escorted her here from breakfast, and he still had to get to his own class on time. She privately thought Neville was being overly cautious - she was nearly quarter of an hour early - but she wasn't about to argue with his determination to never be late to any class no matter what. Plus he had Transfiguration first, and Luna had already marked Professor McGonagall as someone to treat very cautiously. Anyway, she was here now, and happy enough for the chance to meet Professor Flitwick privately. He was already present, going over his lesson plan. He looked up as she entered the classroom.

"Good morning, Miss Lovegood."

She smiled dreamily. "Good morning, Professor Flitwick."

"You're remarkably early. Was there anything you wanted to ask me?"

She paused. "Well, now that you ask... I've heard rather a lot about you in the short time I've been here, and I did wonder just how much of is was true. Would you be clear that up for me?"

Now it was Flitwick's turn to pause, staring intently at this strange child before him. Then he shrugged slightly in resignation, and nodded. "Go ahead, Miss Lovegood."

She paused a moment to collect her thoughts, then turned a worryingly intense gaze on him. "Former dueling champion?"

He nodded. "True."

She smiled. "Part-Goblin?"

He winced. "Does it matter?"

She looked surprised. "Of course it matters! I'm human, female, magical, intelligent, odd, ... All these things are a part of who I am, just like Goblin heritage or lack of same is a part of who you are. I want to understand you, Professor, I want to understand everything, and a large part of who you are is how you became you."

Flitwick leaned on his desk, staring at her once more. "Can you explain to me, Miss Lovegood, precisely why you are not currently a member of my House?"

Luna beamed. "Oh, the Sorting Hat did want to put me in Ravenclaw at first - I'm afraid I had to be quite firm with it. But Professor, I'm intelligent and curious no matter what House I'm in - I don't need Ravenclaw for that, or to help me to learn. I do need friends, though, and right now I only have one of those - his name is Neville Longbottom, and he's in Gryffindor. I'll learn much more as a happy Gryffindor than I ever could as a lonely Ravenclaw."

Flitwick winced at that. "I doubt you'd have been lonely for long in Ravenclaw, Luna - intellects like yours are valued there."

She favoured him with a look of wide-eyed innocence. "Really, Professor? But Daddy says he found Ravenclaw rather an unfriendly place for those with odd ideas, and that would certainly include me. I know I only arrived here yesterday, but I'm afraid your House smells rather bleak to me so far. Maybe it will warm up, though."

The tiny professor winced again. "Perhaps I should take a closer look at the social dynamics of my House, to make sure it really does work the way I thought it did."

The small girl smiled serenely. "That might be a good idea, yes."

Before Flitwick could make any reply to that pronouncement, the door opened once more and the other first-years began filing in for their first class. Flitwick consciously shifted the conversation aside in his mind for later consideration, and with some effort managed to fix his attention upon the lesson he was to teach.

* * *

To the astonishment of everyone in the room except for Flitwick and the girl herself, Luna performed brilliantly at Charms right from the beginning. Flitwick began with a simple Levitation charm, demonstrating it twice before he asked the class to try it. Having watched his demonstrations avidly, Luna proceeded to cast the spell successfully on her very first attempt - on that first attempt, everything she did was a perfect copy of what Flitwick had just done. On the second attempt, her casting was noticeably different - this was her own natural style, and it showed in the ease with which she cast and in the precision with which she controlled the chalk which she had chosen to levitate at a distance of several feet. Completely focused on what she was doing, she was moving the chalk to the board before she even noticed Professor Flitwick's congratulations.

"Well done, Miss Lovegood, exceptionally well done! I've never seen anyone master that first charm so quickly, and I've seen some Charms prodigies in my time - Lily Evans, my old schoolmate Albus Dumbledore, and of course myself. May I ask, Miss Lovegood, if there is any particular secret to your success?"

Luna smiled innocently. "I knew you could do it, so at first I just did exactly what I'd just seen you do - I thought that must work, and I was right. Then I knew how it worked, so I could do it in a more comfortable way and start playing with it."

Professor Flitwick continued to stare at this unreasonably insightful child. "Excellent. Ten points to Gryffindor for your exceptional spellwork, and another ten for your insight into magic."

Luna smiled but said nothing, as she returned to her study of the Levitation charm.

Some time later, she overheard Flitwick gently chiding a fellow first-year Gryffindor whom she didn't know.

"Come now," he said kindly, "I can see the magic quite clearly in you. You most certainly can cast this spell."

Luna glanced across and raised her voice a little. "Professor, surely you of all people understand about playing down one's own strengths and abilities in order to avoid the wrong sort of attention?"

Flitwick twitched a little, and turned to face this ethereal child of whom he was rapidly becoming quite nervous.

"What do you mean by that, Miss Lovegood?"

Luna snorted indelicately. "I have a brain, professor, and it hasn't suddenly stopped working."

After a pause in which he continued to stare at her, she shrugged and continued.

"I mean look at yourself, sir. Part-goblin, and grew up and attended Hogwarts in a time when relations were even worse than they are today. Former international duelling champion, and powerful warrior for the Light in the last war. Youngest Charms master at Hogwarts in quite a long time, and now the longest-serving one ever. Inventor of numerous spells, and those are just the ones you've chosen to make public. You're a highly formidable wizard, sir, and yet your persona is just a cheery and thoroughly unthreatening little jester. I've never met anyone else who worked so hard or so successfully at being unthreatening."

Professor Filius Flitwick, highly experienced and extremely competent Charms Master, floundered helplessly in the face of this extraordinary analysis. For all his towering intellect and encyclopaedic knowledge of his subject, he could not think of a single thing to say in response.

Eventually Professor Flitwick moved on to another student, still without saying a word in response to Luna, and also without saying anything further to the boy whom he'd been trying to help. Behind the puffy white beard, his face was still tinged with red.


End file.
